Counter Revolution: MegaStar Financial Café by Box Studios

Ever since Gordon Gekko declared, in the original Wall Street, that lunch is for wimps, most office employees have eschewed corporate dining for a sandwich at their desk. But a trio of Colorado projects by Box Studios might prove that design has the power to break that trend. "We reimagined the tenant-standard, ho-hum employee kitchen as a fresh collaboration area by adding Internet connectivity, vivid colors­, and touch-me textures to tempt workers out of their cubicles," senior project manager Lauren Dundon says.

After transforming an old Denver dairy into a headquarters for MegaStar Financial, Box Studios clad the 425-square-foot café in slick yellow vinyl accented by panels of wavy white-painted MDF. Granitelike Corian tops the cherrywood island—a materials combination that reappears in the nearby Internet café, backed by polka-dotted resin panels. The look veers more industrial in the 850-square-foot café for software developer Sybase, a repeat client that had moved to a new LEED Gold office building in Broomfield. Generous bar counters, 9-inch-thick composite slabs, serve as gathering spots, surrounded by stools with leather-covered seats. Finally, in the 1,000-square-foot café at the Newmont Mining Corporation's Greenwood Village office, swaths of brightly colored mosaic tile cascade from ceiling to floor, while employees plug in their laptops at multiple locations, just like at a casual coffee­ bar.